Senate Community Affairs References Committee Report
Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health
GPO Box 9848
Canberra ACT 2601
Telephone (02) (illegible)
Senator John Herron
Chairman
Senate Community Affairs
References Committee
S159 20 3
Parliament House
Canberra, ACT 2600
Dear Senator Herron
Tobacco Industry and the Costs of Tobacco-Related Illness
Exempt ...(illegible)..542, 546
Yours sincerely
S J Duckett
Secretary
23 October 1995
Attachment A
Community Affairs
References Committee
Legislation Committee
The Senate Inquiry into the Tobacco Industry and the Costs of Tobacco-Related Illness
Exempt ...(illegible)..542, 546
Q18 It has been put to the Committee that generic packaging may, in fact, enhance the appeal of cigarettes to young people. Does the Department have any information on this?Is there any research that has addressed this issue?
In both a major piece of Canadian research into generic packaging (When Packages can't Speak Possible impacts of pain and generic packaging of tobacco products. 1995) and in Australian research into health warnings and contents labelling on tobacco products (Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer 1992) it has been noted, as an aside that while the intent of generic packaging is to replace positive brand imagery with negative brand imagery, such packaging could in fact have the opposite effect by becoming a heuristic with which teenagers could identify in their search for expression and peer approval. While the issue of generic packaging imagery is interesting. In Australia, the introduction of generic packaging is not consistent with current Commonwealth Government policy. However, this decision is shaped by major legal and Constitutional impediments to such action rather than by research indicating the potential for generic packaging to be adopted as a positive badge or symbol by youth.
Exempt ...(illegible)..542, 546
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